Strategist Six: This Week’s Top Stories Like Twitter’s TV Possibility

Bad news: Time Magazine released a tool that measures time wasted on Facebook. Be prepared for a sizable shock when realizing how many tasks you could’ve accomplished in the time spent scrolling through photo albums of acquaintances. And once you’re sufficiently flabbergasted, we’ve listed more procrastination ammo below for you to share:

Upworthy, the much-loved site that curates existing content, has recently been criticized for allegedly gaming the audience-eyeballs market with aggressive clickbait. But the numbers speak for themselves – in Q4 2013, the site generated 700 million attention minutes per day. Lesson learned: the value of clickbait is in the eye of the beholder.

AdAge hit the nail on the head by pointing out how a Super Bowl ad isn’t just a Super Bowl ad anymore. For most brands, the ad anchors a cross-platform experience on the web and social media. This year, brands that decided not to preview ads before the game were at a significant disadvantage. The brands that succeeded, on the other hand, built full-circle digital campaigns. Lesson learned: advertising worlds have converged.

Intel may have produced the mother of all inspiring videos. It’s not an ad – it’s a powerful documentary short about a man who has overcome personal hurdles to venture where few climbers will ever go. We won’t spoil the revelation – around the one-minute mark – but we will tell you this isn’t a commercial. Lesson learned: if you want attention, make it about people, not your sales pitch.

Online media is always looking to cater to our ever-fleeing attention spans. Brooklyn artist Hectah has teamed up with Mass Appeal for an animated Instagram series that ridicules rappers and other pop culture figures in compact clips. Judging by the surge in popularity, ‘less is more’ works when dealing with social videos. Lesson learned: as the story’s author puts it, “Brevity is insurance that people will actually watch your thing.”

Is Twitter’s stalled user-base growth concerning? Investors may think yes – but CEO Dick Costolo might have a plan up his sleeve. Twitter fell short of 2013 forecasts, finishing with 214 million active users instead of the expected 400 million, but this number may be ignoring the Twitterverse’s lurkers. People use Twitter not just to share content, but to listen. Now imagine this activity translated into a steady stream of tweets, kind of like TV channels. Pretty cool concept, right? Lesson learned: when in doubt, reimagine your multimedia.

Last week, Digiday created a single-serve site that went viral and reached nearly 100,000 people. This article breaks down Digiday’s exact formula for success with zero media budget. Lesson learned: virality doesn’t happen by accident.

And remember: Don’t waste too much time on Facebook. Until next week!

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